Everyone Needs Darkness Art Exhibit

There's a super cool art exhibit at the Lehman Caves Visitor Center in Great Basin National Park called "Everyone Needs Darkness." School kids from across the Great Basin were invited to do art for this theme, and the results were quite impressive. I took some time one day to enjoy the exhibit.

Next to the artwork are displays with the artists' names, title, and description. Here we have "Children Need Darkness" by Elle from Layton, Utah and "A Mirror in the Darkness" by Burklie, Sam, and Rylee from EskDale, Utah.

Some exhibits were three-dimensional, like the bottom one in the photo below titled, "Draw Back the City, Let in the Night."

I didn't know what this was at first, but then read the title, "Embraced by the Night." The description is precious: "We wanted to show how important the night is to the world. We made the earth being hugged by the night sky..."

In this textile piece, each student decorated a piece of fabric and they stitched them all together.

There are too many pieces of art to show them all in this post, but here you can see the theater wall covered.

More artwork is shown out in the lobby.

Finally, three more pieces, with descriptions at the bottom. Check out this 3D owl from Eureka, Nevada student Scarlett.

This Great Horned Owl by Henderson, NV student Athena.

And this "Moonlight Dance" by Henderson, NV student Adina.

The show runs through September 8, which happens to be the Astronomy Festival at Great Basin National Park. It's worth a visit!

Night Shoot on the Ranch

 One clear night I couldn't resist getting up and taking some Milky Way photos. And what better models than some farm equipment? I think it looks extra cool at night. What do you think?

I finished by going out into the fields. Each pivot has a bright light on it to show that it's working, so I wasn't sure how that was going to turn out. Plus the moon was rising. Fortunately the effect was pretty cool!

Trip to the "Magic Grove"

 In June I took the Nevada Conservation Corps crew I had been working with on thinning projects plus some Rangercorps interns up Mt. Washington to apply verbenone to limber pine seed trees. Seeds were collected several years ago to test for resistance to white pine blister rust. In case these trees are resistant, we want to keep them safe from mountain pine beetles. When mountain pine beetles enter a tree, they send out a pheromone called verbenone to signify when the tree is full of pine beetles. So if we apply a synthetic verbenone, then the beetles are fooled and go to other trees.

The first obstacle getting up Mt. Washington is a very steep and curvy road. We also came across a log down, but fortunately the NCC crew had a saw and was able to take care of that.

The views are marvelous! This is looking into Spring Valley and the Schell Creek Range.

We summited Mt. Washington and then went down the other side.

It's kind of steep. Steep enough there are very few plants.

But there were a few of these gorgeous Nevada primrose (Primula nevadensis).

Then we got down to the "Magic Grove" of bristlecones. These tortured trees live with extreme winds, few nutrients, and a short growing season. Despite that adversity, or maybe because of it, they manage to live for millennia.

This natural area is delicate and not visited by many. Those who do visit are reminded to be gentle.

We posed by the "Quarter Tree," which is featured on the Great Basin quarter.


There are a lot of other cool trees up there too.

After applying verbenone to the selected trees,


it was time to climb up Mt. Washington from the other side.

This little tree is raising the treeline on the mountain.

You can actually find pieces of old bristlecone wood even higher, indicating that when the climate was warmer, the forest moved up the mountain. Dendrochronologists have taken sections and tagged these pieces of wood to find out exactly when the trees lived. There's lots more info stored on these mountains than might appear at first glance. That's also why campfires above 10,000 feet aren't allowed in the park--these wood fragments are too valuable to be burned up.

And before we left the mountain, I had to get a photo of the highest elevation cave in Nevada--that slit on the mountain. It just goes down to some snow, there's not much to it. But the scenery is spectacular!


And what better way to end a gorgeous day than at Kerouac's, listening to the Front Porch Pickers.

Regrowth in Strawberry--2 Years after the Fire

I had a couple opportunities to go up Strawberry Creek, which burned in 2018 in a lightning-caused wildfire that burned over 4,000 acres. (Here's a detailed post about the Strawberry Fire.) Elk are often present early in the morning.

Restoration specialists from both the BLM and NPS have worked to reseed the burned area, including aerial reseeding. That work, plus the benefit of three inches of rain in May, has led to some great results, as you can see below.

There was lots of Palmer's penstemon (the pink flower-Penstemon palmeri) and firecracker penstemon (Penstemon eatonii) along the road.

The gate is currently closed at the park boundary, but hopefully park management will choose to open the road again to the public. However, the bridges were taken out, so even though I had permission to go down the road, I couldn't drive past the creek crossing.

I walked up the road to the trailhead, which showed signs of some overland flows.

A closer look at the entry point showed a few inches of new debris.

After I jumped over the creek, I went to the interpretive sign about the Mountain Shrub Community. You can see how the mountains line up and changes in the illustration to what I photographed.

Up higher I found some beautiful penstemon.

I conducted a bird survey up Windy Canyon and then headed down a different way. I eventually had to traverse this mess of downfall. Too much of the park's forests are like this, meaning more huge fires in the future.

I also found some fun aspen carvings. Many were in Spanish from the Peruvian sheepherders. I guess H2O is universal.

Coming back down I saw more beautiful flowers.

Near the creek, the aspens are resprouting quickly.

It will be interesting to see how this watershed recovers from this wildfire. There is such an opportunity to interpret the changes that occur after fire here.

Orientation to Cave Rescue, Oak City, Utah

In June I helped teach a two-day Orientation to Cave Rescue class for the National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC) in Oak City, Utah. This class introduces cavers and first responders to cave rescue terminology and techniques. (The recent cave rescue in Thailand would be the other end of the spectrum--the super complex and technical rescue.)

We started with part of the day in the classroom at the Oak City Community Center. Then we moved out to the pavilion to practice some patient packaging.

I noticed that in the Thai cave rescue they were using SKEDs just like this one, except a different color. SKEDs are good litters for small spots, as you basically wrap a person so they look like a burrito.

The nearby playground gave us a perfect opportunity to practice moving the litters. We had obstacles, but many of the "cave walls" were invisible, making communications much easier than in a real cave. Students still had to follow the "cave passage," though, which included belly crawling and climbing and sliding down slides.

The second day was a full day mock rescue. I was to be an "angel," or observer for one of the patients. My job was to make sure he was safe. We headed to the cave ahead of the students, geared up, and headed into the little hole.

The students had three patients to find, and Rodney was the furthest back in the cave. It didn't take them too long to find him and start doing a medical assessment. They realized they would need a litter to carry him out.

The litter came and they packaged him in it. Since it was such a warm cave, he didn't want the full packaging of a vapor barrier (tarp) and two blankets.

After a bit, it was time to start moving him towards the entrance.

It took lots of coordination to get him out of the small pit and to the next team that moved him forward. Rodney is checking to make sure that I'm getting some photos. :)

Then came more obstacles. Even though the students were new to cave rescue, they did a good job of moving Rodney carefully through the cave. At the same time, other students were dealing with the other two patients. Plus a couple students were on the surface, running the Incident Command Post and experiencing the very different situations top-side faces.

 A communications system using military field phones and a spool of wire was set up, and that helped get some communications out to the surface.

A few more maneuvers, and Rodney was out!

Because it was a mock rescue, he was magically cured and then freed from the litter.

We held a debrief so everyone would know what happened in other parts of the incident. The lead instructor, Bonny, led the debrief. The debrief also highlighted things that went well and areas that need more practice.

It was a great weekend, and I was impressed how far some of the students had come to take the class. We had students from not only nearby Utah and Nevada, but also California, Montana, and Wyoming. Some drove 14 hours one way! Fortunately, they all thought it was worth it and are looking forward to learning more about cave rescue. It's a type of rescue that isn't needed often, but when it is, it takes specialized skills.

For more on upcoming cave rescue training, check out the NCRC page. There's also an annual national weeklong seminar (next May in Indiana), plus various regional weeklong seminars (such as next February in Texas), plus there will be additional Orientation to Cave Rescues and Small Party Assisted Rescue classes listed.

To read more about actual cave rescues or to report one, here's the American Caving Accidents page.